Vismon
Encyclopedia
Vismon was the Bell Labs
system which displayed authors' faces on one of their internal e-mail
systems. The name was a pun on the sysmon program used at Bell to show the load on computer systems. It can also be interpreted as "visual monitor". The system inspired Rich Burridge to develop the similar but more widespread faces system which spread with Unix
distributions in the 1980s . This in turn inspired Steve Kinzler
to develop the Picons, or personal icons, which have the goal of offering symbols and other images, as well as faces to represent individuals and institutions in email messages. Other systems such as the faces available on the LAN email functions of the Nextstep
platform also seem to have been influenced by the original Vismon capabilities. The faces program in Plan 9
is the direct descendant of this system.
Vismon was the work of Rob Pike and Dave Presotto. It was based on some early experiments by Luca Cardelli
. Many other scientist and engineers of the Computing Science Research Center of the Murray Hill
facility were also involved. All had been spurred by the introduction in 1983 of the new Blit
graphics terminal developed by Pike and Bart Locanthi and marketed by Teletype Corporation
of Skokie, Illinois as the DMD 5620. Pike was eager, along with his colleagues, to exploit the new graphic capabilities.
Pike and company went around their Center, convincing everybody, from directors and administrative assistants to engineers and scientists, to pose as they got out a 4x5" view camera with a Polaroid
back and took black-and-white photos (Polaroid type 52) of their faces. Their efforts yielded nearly 100 faces, which they digitised with a scanner from graphics colleagues. They wrote several programs to transform the faces, store them and serve them on several machines at the lab. As time went by they added faces from outside their Center and outside Bell Labs. This database also led to the pico image editor (originally named zunk
) which was used for image transformations, many of them with colleagues as the preferred target http://spinroot.com/pjw.
The first programs built around vismon were used to announce incoming mail in a dedicated window, using the 48 by 48 pixel faces. Later on the faces were also used to decorate line printer banners.
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
system which displayed authors' faces on one of their internal e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
systems. The name was a pun on the sysmon program used at Bell to show the load on computer systems. It can also be interpreted as "visual monitor". The system inspired Rich Burridge to develop the similar but more widespread faces system which spread with Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
distributions in the 1980s . This in turn inspired Steve Kinzler
Steve Kinzler
Steve Kinzler is the maintainer of the Internet Oracle, a socratic question-and-answer format humor project. He initiated the project in 1989.- External links :**...
to develop the Picons, or personal icons, which have the goal of offering symbols and other images, as well as faces to represent individuals and institutions in email messages. Other systems such as the faces available on the LAN email functions of the Nextstep
NEXTSTEP
NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...
platform also seem to have been influenced by the original Vismon capabilities. The faces program in Plan 9
Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system. It was developed primarily for research purposes as the successor to Unix by the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs between the mid-1980s and 2002...
is the direct descendant of this system.
Vismon was the work of Rob Pike and Dave Presotto. It was based on some early experiments by Luca Cardelli
Luca Cardelli
Luca Cardelli is an Italian computer scientist who is currently an Assistant Director at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. Cardelli is well-known for his research in type theory and operational semantics. Among other contributions he implemented the first compiler for the functional programming...
. Many other scientist and engineers of the Computing Science Research Center of the Murray Hill
Murray Hill, New Jersey
Murray Hill is an unincorporated area within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County in northern New Jersey, United States....
facility were also involved. All had been spurred by the introduction in 1983 of the new Blit
Blit (computer terminal)
In computing, the Blit was a programmable bitmap graphics terminal designed by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi Jr. of Bell Labs in 1982.When initially switched on, the Blit looked like an ordinary textual terminal, although taller than usual: Similar to the VT100 it had an addressable cursor and...
graphics terminal developed by Pike and Bart Locanthi and marketed by Teletype Corporation
Teletype Corporation
The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment...
of Skokie, Illinois as the DMD 5620. Pike was eager, along with his colleagues, to exploit the new graphic capabilities.
Pike and company went around their Center, convincing everybody, from directors and administrative assistants to engineers and scientists, to pose as they got out a 4x5" view camera with a Polaroid
Instant film
Instant film is a type of photographic film first introduced by Polaroid that is designed to be used in an instant camera...
back and took black-and-white photos (Polaroid type 52) of their faces. Their efforts yielded nearly 100 faces, which they digitised with a scanner from graphics colleagues. They wrote several programs to transform the faces, store them and serve them on several machines at the lab. As time went by they added faces from outside their Center and outside Bell Labs. This database also led to the pico image editor (originally named zunk
Zunk
Zunk was an early version of a digital image editor. It was written in 1983 by Gerard Holzmann in the Bell Labs Unix group and inspired by the vismon program...
) which was used for image transformations, many of them with colleagues as the preferred target http://spinroot.com/pjw.
The first programs built around vismon were used to announce incoming mail in a dedicated window, using the 48 by 48 pixel faces. Later on the faces were also used to decorate line printer banners.